Tag Archives: Vertical Take Offs and Landings

The F-35A made its aerial demonstration debut on June 19, 2017 at the Paris Air Show in front of crowds of thousands. Watch this impressive display of 5th Generation innovation in military aviation. This video is courtesy of Lockheed-Martin, the aircraft’s manufacturer. The ship is currently undergoing a rich plethora of tests at Edwards Air Force Base, the Air Force’s principal Flight Test Center. The demonstration video is 6:39 long. Remember your sound needs to be on, and you might want to open the video full size, since it is in HD.

And, another comprehensive video, only 2:00 minutes long, below, shows this versatile new fighter in various configurations for different mission purposes. The F-35 program has accomplished the final developmental test flight of the System Design and Demonstration (SDD) phase of the program. The developmental flight test program has conducted more than 9,200 sorties, accumulated over 17,000 flight hours, and executed more than 65,000 test points to verify the design, durability, software, sensors, weapons capability and performance for all three F-35 variants.

One of these variants includes the capability to take off vertically, without the usual long runways required of such advanced fighter aircraft. Be amazed as this fighter does things seemingly impossible. You will see one of its variants taking off straight up, and doing so from an Aircraft Carrier, also. The F-35 will be used by all three aviation branches of the U.S. Armed Forces: The USAF, USN, and the USMC. Learn even more about this fighting machine right here.